One day in the autumn a carrettiere from Serveti, who would sometimes stop at my door and leave me a basket of grapes in the vintage, or a pitcher of fresh oil in winter, because he never used to pay his house-rent when I was his landlord--but he is a good fellow, Gigi--and so he tries to make amends now; well, as I was saying, he came one day and gave me a great basket of fine grapes, and he brought Nino with him, a little boy of scarce six years--just to show him to me, he said.
He was an ugly little boy, with a hat of no particular shape and a dirty face.

He had great black eyes, with ink-saucers under them, _calamai_, as we say, just as he has now.

Only the eyes are bigger now, and the circles deeper.

But he is still sufficiently ugly.

If it were not for his figure, which is pretty good, he could never have made a fortune with his voice.